


To Love and Let Go

by Unfeathered



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV Twelfth Doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24861049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unfeathered/pseuds/Unfeathered
Summary: The Doctor's been lecturing at St Luke's University for several decades; of course Jack was going to find him eventually
Relationships: The Doctor & Jack Harkness, Twelfth Doctor & Jack Harkness
Kudos: 46
Collections: Winter Companions





	To Love and Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://wintercompanion.dreamwidth.org/257545.html) on 1 August 2018 for the Summer 10 Challenge at [Winter Companions](https://wintercompanion.dreamwidth.org/), for the prompt: _the Ibizan goatherd, cures, a jar, while out for a walk_
> 
> Beta'd by [rhia_starsong](https://rhia-starsong.dreamwidth.org/)

The Doctor looks across his desk at the latest visitor Nardole's brought in, a regular cocktail of emotions bubbling and swirling inside him.

"How did you find me?"

Jack gives him a limpid look. "Come on, Doctor! A guy who's said to have hardly aged since he started lecturing in the fifties – that was bound to get my attention! Not to mention the legendary lectures that cover everything from quantum physics to Keats to the perfect way to boil an egg?" He quirks an eyebrow, grinning a little. "Oh, and – you know – the fact you're still calling yourself _'the Doctor'_!"

All right, he has to admit Jack's got him there. He didn't even bother to call himself John Smith this time.

He leans back in his big leather chair and treats the Captain to the trademark enigmatic smile he's perfected in this body (a bit warmer and less condescending than it's been in some of his previous incarnations). "Well, it would be mean if I didn't give you a _chance_ to find me, wouldn't it?"

Jack snorts softly, and pushes up impatiently out of the visitor's chair he'd barely settled into. The Doctor watches him glance at the TARDIS parked in the corner, but he doesn't go to it, just paces restlessly over to the table near the window and picks up a pawn from the chess board and sets it down again. And memory rushes him, of Jack doing exactly the same thing the last time he visited.

This is the third time Jack's found him since he exiled himself on Earth in an ironic parody of the way the Time Lords exiled him here in his third incarnation – especially ironic because he's ended up living through the same period of history all over again and having to take care to avoid bumping into himself. And into Jack, of course. Except Jack has a habit of seeking him out. Jack knows the other dashing, silver-haired version of him hanging around UNIT in the early eighties is from before the Time War and therefore he mustn't interfere with him. But Jack's seen the UNIT files; he knows this version of him must be later. A version who's already met him. _If_ he can just get close enough to confirm it really is him.

This is Jack's third visit, but Jack doesn't remember either of the previous two. Jack may be foolhardy enough to risk corrupting his own timeline by meeting the Doctor out of order, but the Doctor's not. Jack's timeline is complicated enough as it is, and then there's the Fixed Point thing to worry about…

"So, what is it I can do for you, now that you've found me?" he asks, idly enough, but he's studying Jack surreptitiously as Jack sets the globe on the table spinning and then wanders back towards the big desk (after another, lingering, glance towards the TARDIS), trailing a hand over the bell jar with glowy lights in that he picked up from a charity shop because it reminded him of one Zoe once got him.

"What are you doing here, Doctor?" Jack asks, completely ignoring his question. Not entirely unexpectedly; neither of them has ever been very good at actually answering things. "Have you really been just sitting here in this university for _years_?"

The Doctor steeples his fingers and looks at Jack over the top of them, considering whether he should push for an answer or answer Jack instead. He plumps for the latter, in the interests of fostering openness. "I promised to look after something for someone, for a very long time. Plopping myself down in a period I've spent a lot of time in already felt like a good way of making myself stay put and not get involved in world affairs."

Jack inclines his head in acknowledgement of that argument. "How long?"

His lips twitch. "Let's just say, thirty years really is only the start of it."

Dark eyebrows arch upwards and blue eyes widen. "That's gotta be hard. It's been hard enough for me, but for _you_ …"

"I'm capable of staying in one place if I want to," the Doctor protests, and after all, Jack's seen it for himself, in the long (endless) year on the Valiant – which, actually, isn't exactly that dissimilar, given who he was staying put for that time as well. Oh, except, he reminds himself, Jack _hasn't_ seen that yet. Bother it: this is why he hates meeting people out of order.

River excepted, of course. With her it's come to be a given.

He can't help glancing fondly over at River's portrait on his desk. "I spent twenty-four years in one place not long before this," he mentions, and then sighs inwardly when Jack's gaze inevitably tracks his to the photo.

"Oh yeah?" Jack asks, reaching over and spinning the frame round so he can see the picture. His eyebrows climb high on his forehead again. "Who's _this?_ " he asks, with a definite leer.

The thought of Jack meeting up with River and having to cope with _two_ lots of smirking and innuendo is too much to contemplate. He leans forward and pulls the photo gently but firmly out of Jack's hand and places it carefully back down where it was. "No-one you need worry your pretty head about," he says, rather gruffly, and snatches up Susan's photo instead, as a much safer subject of conversation. "Now, this one, I also stayed put for, for several years, way back in the day. She wanted to go to school, like a normal human. I tried to give that to her."

Jack takes the picture, smiling down at it with recognition. "Susan," he says softly. "Your granddaughter."

"That's right." He doesn't ask how Jack knows. He's almost certain there'll be information about Susan in UNIT's files and, hell, they've both recently lived through that period again themselves, haven't they?

"I went back to see her, just once, from a distance," he says wistfully, his eyes on the back of the frame in Jack's hands, not needing to be able to see it to know every line, every dimple on that beloved face.

"Did it help?" Jack asks, and he looks up to see a strange expression on Jack's face. Longing, perhaps, or loss, or both.

"Why are you here, Jack?" he asks again, and Jack sighs and puts Susan back on the desk, instead pushing back the left sleeve of his coat and flipping open his leather wrist strap.

"Well, since we're doing old photos…" he drawls, pressing a few buttons, and suddenly a holographic picture appears of a tanned, Hispanic-looking young man in peasant dress, perched goat-like on a precarious-looking mountainside.

"Meet José, the Ibizan goatherd," Jack announces, with a grin that doesn't hide the fondness in his expression as he looks at the picture, or the darkness lingering in the back of his gaze.

"The Ibizan goatherd?" the Doctor echoes, mildly amused, leaning forward to get a better look at the hologram.

"There were a lot of Josés around. The locals had a nickname for each of them. He was… he was an amazing man. He wasn't only a goatherd; he was a healer, too."

And there's that flash of darkness again. The Doctor sits up and studies Jack closely. "Jack. What happened?"

"We had a very nice fling, back in '33," Jack says flippantly. Then he catches the Doctor's gaze and he sighs, shoulders dropping as he flicks the hologram off and closes up his wrist strap again. "He was a healer," he says again, sounding almost helpless, and his gaze as he slowly meets the Doctor's eyes again makes him look somehow very young and vulnerable. "He could cure _anything_ , he said. I _saw_ him do it; he had all kinds of medicines… And I need that. I need to go back and find him again."

 _Oh._ Finally, the Doctor gets it. He purses his lips and gives Jack a knowing look. "So you didn't really come here to see _me_ , you just wanted something I could do for you?"

Jack shoots exactly the same look right back at him. "And you're going to tell me that next time you seek me out it's going to be for a social call, rather than something I can do for you?"

Okay, he has to admit Jack has him there – again. He must be getting old.

"Who is it?" he asks gently. "Who's so ill you need to go back to the 1930s and find an obscure Ibizan goatherd to cure them?"

"Jacob," Jack says tightly, his eyes a little wild. "I… My son – grown-up son, from my first marriage in 1910."

More than grown-up, then, the Doctor realises, working out the timelines. Not just grown-up; _old_ , by human standards.

"He has cancer," Jack says, lost and desperate. "And I lost my most recent attempt at a family four years ago. They took them from me, to keep them safe. I can't… I can't lose him as well."

The Doctor gives him a gentle look, because if there's anyone who can understand this kind of pain, it's him. Oh, he understands it far, far too well. But what can he do? Abruptly, he pushes up out of his chair and walks to the window, the far one, because brisk movement helps him think and he can't think under the intensity of Jack's desperate gaze. To his relief, Jack doesn't try to follow him or hurry him, and when he eventually turns back, Jack's slumped in the visitor's chair again, his head in his hands.

"Jack," he says quietly, coming back to him, leaning a hip against the front of the desk as he looks affectionately down at his old friend. "Jack. You know I can't take you back to find this goatherd to get a cure for cancer for your elderly son. That's not what we do. We move on. You and I, we can't live in the past. Everything has its time, and everything comes to an end. We have to say goodbye and move on."

Jack doesn't move, though he's obviously listening. The Doctor sighs and takes a step closer to lay a comforting hand on Jack's shoulder, the heavy wool of the greatcoat familiar beneath his palm. "I'm sorry, Jack. It's hard, and it hurts, and it's not fair. But you can't save everyone forever. At some point you have to let them go."

He trails the knuckles of his other hand along the frame of River's picture, and then glances at Susan's too. He let them both go, in the end, though he fought it just as Jack is now.

"I know," Jack says hollowly, muffled through his fingers, and finally looks up at him, running his fingers through his hair as he lifts his head and asks the question, the only question there is: "How?"

He studies Jack, considering how to play this. He's going to have to wipe his memories of this meeting. He can't complicate Jack's timeline even more than it already is by allowing him to remember, however much he'd love to have Jack around for the next twenty-something years. But he knows he can't enjoy that luxury until Jack finally catches up with his younger self – after which Jack might very well not want anything to do with him for a while anyway.

But perhaps he can ensure that at least his advice lingers in the dark crevices of Jack's mind, that Jack retains some sense of comfort from this encounter. He gives Jack's shoulder one last pat and straightens, crossing to grab the other wooden chair from beside the fireplace and set it down facing Jack in front of the desk.

"Let me help," he says, sitting down on the chair and reaching out, his fingertips splayed towards Jack's temples.

Jack sucks in a breath and looks at him for a long moment, obviously caught between hope that he might actually be able to help and fear that his mind's about to be wiped. Both of which would be accurate, of course. The Doctor waits as patiently as he can, and is finally rewarded by a nod and Jack turning his body to face him. "Okay."

He gives Jack what he hopes is a reassuring smile and finally lets his fingertips make contact.

The sheer impact of feeling Jack's mind against his after all this time makes _him_ suck in a breath, as sights and sounds and tastes that aren't his wash against him. Jack always has been incredibly generous, and now that he's made his decision he's holding nothing back. The Doctor finds himself flooded with memories of the last century and more that Jack's lived through since the Game Station and he wishes, not for the first time, that his younger self had been able to get over Jack's Factness sooner, so he wouldn't have had to go through so much for so long all alone.

 _Show me Jacob_ , he murmurs silently, and hears Jack's breath hitch as he complies. More memories flood him, specific ones this time: a young woman in Edwardian dress cradling a baby in long Christening robes… a toddler running around a garden… the same boy, a little older, cuddled up between his parents in bed… riding a tricycle, riding a bike, going to school, going to university… bringing home a girl, another girl, more tentatively a boy… another girl, a wedding this time, and then, far too soon, a funeral – _two_ funerals, wife and mother… long years burying himself in work, cutting himself off, and Jack's joy when he finally came back – a scene of a Christmas dinner, just Jack and his son, looking aged now but happy again at last.

The Doctor smiles, even as the memories transition to images of the now elderly man in a hospital bed. _He's had a good life, Jack,_ he says tenderly, carefully gathering the memories and wrapping them up together in a bundle for Jack. It'll keep them that little bit brighter, that little bit easier to hold onto, when other things blur with age.

 _I know_ , Jack responds sadly, and already it feels like he's a little more open to the idea of letting Jacob go.

 _Good lad,_ he says approvingly, and sets about inconspicuously adding in a few mufflers, not to dull the memories but just to make them feel a little more distant, to help Jack come to terms with his imminent loss.

 _Thank you,_ Jack whispers, and the Doctor doesn't bother trying to hide what he starts in on next, but neither does he announce it. Jack's known from the start that he wouldn't be allowed to keep his memory of this meeting, and there's no resistance from the Captain as he gently picks out all the pertinent facts, from Jack finding out about the un-aging Doctor at St Luke's, to the present moment, and bundles them all together before hiding them away in the recesses of Jack's mind where they'll stay hidden until he reaches the appropriate point in his timeline.

 _Sleep now, Jack,_ he croons, waiting as Jack's mind fades to grey, withdrawing from his, leaving him alone again. He stays there just a moment, forehead leaning against Jack's, saying goodbye. And then he stands up and hoists the Captain's limp body over his shoulder and heads for the TARDIS.

* * *

He sets down in Cardiff and settles Jack's still sleeping body on a bench near the Hub. With any luck he'll think he just dropped off while out for a walk.

He pauses to twitch the greatcoat into position, and is slow to straighten. However much he believed the advice he gave Jack, it's never easy to act on it himself. To love, and to let go.

He lets out a breath and turns decisively back towards the TARDIS. Time to get her back to the university before Nardole discovers she's gone.


End file.
